Skip to main content
Main

Clam Soup

A soup made with clams, water, butter, onion, celery, milk, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and chop the clams.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, melt butter and sauté chopped onion and celery until soft.

  2. Add water and bring to a boil.

  3. Stir in the clams and cook for a few minutes.

  4. Add milk, salt, and pepper to taste, and heat through.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Clam + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together840 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main protein and briny, seafood flavor of the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries flavor from the aromatics.
Onion
Softens and adds savory sweetness as the base of the soup.
Celery
Adds a mild, vegetal crunch and aromatic depth to the base.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a smooth, rich body to the broth.

The step that matters

Heat through after adding milk. Milk can curdle or scorch if it is boiled hard. Adding it at the end and warming it gently keeps the soup smooth and creamy.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, butter, onion, milk, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, butter, onion, milk, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More clam soup recipes

Mock 5Philadelphia 3 See all 191 →

You might also like

Cream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesCelery CroquettesCelery Croquettes16 recipesCelery Cream SoupCelery Cream Soup15 recipes